To the girls I went to high school with who are now my Facebook friends...
...even though we’ve never talked to each other
You!
You have more babies than me.
I speak more languages than you.
You’ve been married since age nineteen.
I was married once for nineteen days.
You come to Europe on vacation.
I go back to Texas on vacation.
You’ve licked just about as many holiday postal stamps
as I have immigration stamps in my passport.
You have a thousand dollar a month mortgage on that house you bought in the suburbs.
I live in a cooperative ecovillage built by a thousand magicians.
You’ve watched more movies in the last month than I’ve seen in a three years.
I’ve written more novels in one month than you read during Sophomore English.
You used to wear heels and reapply mascara regularly.
Now you choose vomit-resistant clothing and push strollers in circles.
I used to skip pep rallies to smoke and listen to Nirvana.
Now I skip smoking to teach yoga and sing mantras.
You were elected Secretary of the Future Farmers of America and captain of the volleyball team.
I elected Bowling by Correspondence for Physical Education credit and burned my membership card for the National Honor Society.
Prom night was secretly the best night of your life.
Everyone knows Burning Man was the best week of mine.
You were six lockers away from me every school day for four years.
Now we’re separated by seven time zones and five astral dimensions at least.
Yet I remember that one lunchtime you let me cut in line
to get the freshest basket of chicken tenders and French fries
as gratitude for letting you copy my SAT answers
and final test for French III.
In some mysterious and subtle way,
I am me because of you,
and you are you because of me,
as we voyeuristically click each other’s photographs
in our distant realities.
You!
You have more babies than me.
I speak more languages than you.
You’ve been married since age nineteen.
I was married once for nineteen days.
You come to Europe on vacation.
I go back to Texas on vacation.
You’ve licked just about as many holiday postal stamps
as I have immigration stamps in my passport.
You have a thousand dollar a month mortgage on that house you bought in the suburbs.
I live in a cooperative ecovillage built by a thousand magicians.
You’ve watched more movies in the last month than I’ve seen in a three years.
I’ve written more novels in one month than you read during Sophomore English.
You used to wear heels and reapply mascara regularly.
Now you choose vomit-resistant clothing and push strollers in circles.
I used to skip pep rallies to smoke and listen to Nirvana.
Now I skip smoking to teach yoga and sing mantras.
You were elected Secretary of the Future Farmers of America and captain of the volleyball team.
I elected Bowling by Correspondence for Physical Education credit and burned my membership card for the National Honor Society.
Prom night was secretly the best night of your life.
Everyone knows Burning Man was the best week of mine.
You were six lockers away from me every school day for four years.
Now we’re separated by seven time zones and five astral dimensions at least.
Yet I remember that one lunchtime you let me cut in line
to get the freshest basket of chicken tenders and French fries
as gratitude for letting you copy my SAT answers
and final test for French III.
In some mysterious and subtle way,
I am me because of you,
and you are you because of me,
as we voyeuristically click each other’s photographs
in our distant realities.